1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a keyboard apparatus for musical instruments such as pianos, organs, clavichords, and harpsichords. In particular, the present invention relates to a user-adjustable keyboard apparatus that simulates the touch and feel of an acoustic keyboard instrument, and that can be used in electronic keyboard instruments. The present invention further relates to a user-adjustable keyboard apparatus that can simulate the feel of a selected type of keyboard instrument, and that is simple and cost-effective to manufacture, and to methods for making and using the apparatus.
2. Discussion of the Background
Keyboard instruments, particularly pianos and organs, have been described as the most versatile of all musical instruments due to the extraordinary range of music they can produce. Present-day pianos and organs represent the culmination of centuries of developments aimed at improving the tonal quality, volume, sustainability, dynamic range, and reproducibility of the musical sounds (also termed “notes” or “tones”) produced by these instruments. The best instruments allow an accomplished player to perform virtually any kind of musical composition, in virtually any style, ranging from gentle to forceful, from soft or loud, and from slow to fast.
Electronic keyboards represent a recent development in musical instrument design. Electronic keyboards are becoming increasingly popular among both amateur and professional performers due to their versatility, portability, compactness, and relatively low cost when compared to acoustic instruments. These keyboards can be programmed to generate sounds that simulate a variety of acoustic keyboard instruments (piano, organ, harpsichord, clavichord, etc.) as well as other musical instruments. With the appropriate hardware and software, it is possible to program an electronic keyboard to produce virtually any desired types of output sounds. Most electronic keyboards are much smaller and lighter than a conventional piano or organ, and are therefore easier to transport between gigs or when the owner is moving to a different residence.
For many performers, a major drawback of electronic keyboards is that they simply do not “feel” the same as conventional keyboard instruments when played. In a conventional acoustic piano the player depresses a key to initiate a mechanical operation that produces a music sound. The force applied to the key is transmitted to a hammer through a whippen and a jack assembly, and the hammer strikes a metal string (or strings) to produce the sound. The loudness and tonal quality of the sound produced by each struck key depends on the force applied to the key when the player depresses it, the number of strings struck by the hammer (and the properties of those strings), and whether or not the player depressed any pedals while striking the key (typical pianos have two foot pedals: a “loud” or “sustain” pedal and a “soft” or “mute” pedal). Different musical sounds are produced by striking individual keys with varying degrees of force, by striking combinations of keys to produce chords, by rapidly striking the same key in succession, by rapidly stroking many keys in succession with the back of the thumb to produce a glissando, etc.
The overall “touch” or “feel” of an acoustic piano keyboard results from a combination of the individual player's technique and the complex interaction of a large number of moving parts that together constitute the piano action (for purposes of this specification, the terms “touch” and “feel” refer to the totality of the player's experience when playing a keyboard instrument). The mechanism of an organ, while different from that of a piano, also results in a particular touch experienced by the player. Indeed, each acoustic piano has a unique character and touch, so that players who are shopping for a piano will frequently try out several before selecting that one which best fits their individual preferences.
In an electronic keyboard, depressing a key operates a sensor, switch, or other device associated with a tone generator, resulting in a completely different touch from that experienced with a conventional piano or organ. While different keys produce different sounds, the variation that a player can impart to the sound generated upon striking a particular key is much less than that experienced with a piano.
One of the goals of electronic keyboard design has been to produce a keyboard that simulates the touch of a conventional piano or organ as closely as possible: the individual keys must be balanced, they must not be too easy to depress (or offer too much resistance to depression), and they must be capable of producing different sounds, ranging from loud to soft and from short to sustained, depending on how they are struck by the player. Attempts to address these requirements typically involve the addition of electronic components that sense the duration and force of each keystroke, resulting in increasingly complex and expensive devices that nevertheless fail in comparison to acoustic keyboards. Even state-of-the art electronic keyboards cannot reliably produce embellishments such as staccatos and glissandos: many keyboards simply do not respond adequately to the fast, light touch of a staccato, and none have the flexibility that is needed for a player to execute a good glissando. Despite the many different types of electronic keyboards available to consumers, no known design completely and consistently simulates the touch of a conventional piano or organ keyboard. Thus, many players, both amateurs and professional musicians, remain convinced that electronic keyboard instruments lack the user-friendliness and versatility they prize in their favorite acoustic instruments.
Accordingly, there is a need for a keyboard action that reliably simulates the touch of a conventional piano or organ keyboard, and that allows a player to execute staccatos, glissandos, and like embellishments. Preferably, such an action would be adjustable both to suit the individual player's preferences and to simulate the touch of different types of instruments (piano, organ, etc.), and would be simple and cost-effective to manufacture.